WEEKLY DIGITAL/COMMS HIGHLIGHTS

GOOLE ZEITGEIST – 2010 – THE YEAR IN SEARCH/TRENDS
The Google Zeitgeist wrap up is always a great overview of all the global events across the year that resulted in a huge amount of search volume being funnelled via Google, however this year they’ve gone to new lengths with a great short video overview & interactive data visualisation. NB – it’s not boring search data….worth watching.


WIEDEN & KENNEDY ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR HALF OF THE TOP 10 ADVERTISING VIRAL VIDEOS OF 2010!
Advertising Age has released their round up of the top 10 (advertising) viral videos of 2010 based on number of views. Unsurprisingly, Old Spice tops the charts but what is surprising is that numbers 2,4,5 & 7 are also W&K creations….it’s been a great year for them!


NB – ‘Bed Intruder Song’ which is not included in the list was the most watched independent video of 2010 with 47.5 million views
Check out the overall list from Youtube


DISNEY HITS 100 MILLION FACEBOOK FANS
Disney recently hit 100 million Facebook fans, and are currently gaining about 5 million more fans a week – astonishing growth since the company only started posting to Facebook properly in August 2009.
The ‘Thank You’ video which contains some great stats
Via @WeAreSocial


NEW YEAR’S EVE HOUSE PARTY REQUIRES FOURSQUARE CHECKIN TO GET IN
THIS IS COOL!
This New Year’s Eve, some partygoers will find themselves checking in on Foursquare should they wish to gain entry to a house party in Brooklyn. No, this is not some checkin campaign cooked up by a brand, but instead the product of two New York technophiles who have jimmy-rigged their front door to unlock with each Foursquare checkin.


MARMITE CANVAS FOR COSTA COFFEE
Welsh artist Nathan Wyburn has created a series of celebrity portraits, using jam and marmite on a toast canvas for Costa Coffee in the UK. It’s part of the execution of their ‘who would you most like to have breakfast with’ campaign.


ORANGE: A TWEET FOR A PORTRAIT
A really nice simple Twitter activation from Orange, simply send your tweet along with the hashtag #secretportraits & Orange will draw you a portrait by looking at your profile & taking into account the content of your tweet


YOUTUBE LAUNCHES ‘TRENDS’
YouTube Trends is an analytics hub featuring feeds showing trending videos & trending topics; a feature called “4 at 4″ that presents four buzzed-about vids twice a day, a Know Your Meme-esque blog to analyse said vids and a dashboard that breaks down popular videos by demographics


POT NOODLE BECOMES ‘POT NOELDLE’
In a brilliant piss-take off the animated cosy Christmas scenes we’re all used to at this time of year, AKQA have created an online video to promote the Seasonal Pot Noodle creation.


MOST CONTAGIOUS 2010
NB – If you haven’t already read ‘Most Contagious 2010’ do it now! It’s a super-duper wrap up of the best work from this year compiled by the guys at Contagious Magazine

WEEKLY DIGITAL/COMMS HIGHLIGHTS

TOP VIRAL VIDEOS OF THIS WEEK

Piggy – GEICO Commercial - US insurance ad with a whining piglet

Inspired Bicycles – Danny MacAskill - Impressive bike stunts coupled with Band Of Horses music

Antoine Dodson’s Commercial For A Sex Offender Tracker App.

Yoda – ‘Get you there he will’ - Yoda lends his voice over services to SatNav firm TomTom.

LEBRON JAMES FOR NIKE ‘WHAT SHOULD I DO?’

This week saw the release of a Nike Youtube video featuring LeBron James entitled ‘what should I do’. In the commercial, Lebron remineses on his high school days along with the choices that he has made to date; questioning what he thought was right vs what the public thought was wrong. It’s racked up almost 5 million views in just a few days already.

He probably didn’t think he would get a response but….he did:

Michael Jordan responds – ‘maybe it’s my fault’ (1.5 million views)

The citizens of Ohio respond (3.7 million views)

South Park spoof

3D PROJECTION MAPPING MOVES TO THE NEXT LEVEL (FINALLY)!

I’m a bit over the whole projection mapping thing, it’s been done to death & is essentially a passive experience which looks nice….until now. With the release of Xbox Kinect, projection mapping has become interactive. Check out this ‘making of’ video, which explains how they created a giant 3d projection mapping interactive game people in the street could play with in Germany. 

12 PART DETECTIVE STORY PRINTED ON BEER BOTTLES

Massachusetts brewery Just Beer has released a new IPA called “The Case of the IPA.”  But instead of doing the old boring label, Just Beer decided to print a long-form story.  In a 12-pack, each 20oz bottle contains a little more of a 20’s-style detective serial, each label acting as a page.

FACEBOOK LAUNCHES TARGETED PUBLISHING

Most relevant to those who have a global page…

On Wednesday, as a Thanksgiving ‘present’, Facebook launched targeted publishing via their API, which means those using third-party tools to manage their Pages can now send more relevant posts to specific users – for example, they can select only users from London, or only users that have German set as their language (or combinations thereof). Syncapse were the first to update their software so that their customers can utilise this, but Vitrue and Buddy Media followed suit soon after 

NISSAN JUKE IAD – DEMO

This is a fantastic example of the possibilities of the iAd platform. Nissan have created an interactive game about racing around to get donuts…it not only engages people with the car (the Juke model) but also gives them a simple, comedic & fun experience all via an advert! This is advertising mixed with gaming mixed with video mixed with social mixed with product demo mixed with music etc etc

It’s awesome.

GOOGLE BUYS GROUPON

Not 100% confirmed but if the rumours are true then this gets Google straight into the local digital vouchering space in a way that their ‘Tags’ feature in Google Maps has only managed to do in a limited way
 

NEVER SAY NO TO PANDA

I love these ads. Arab Dairy created the ‘Never say no to Panda’ ads to promote their Panda Feta, Istanbully, Cheddar, Parmesan and Mozzarella cheeses, with five commercials featuring a Panda bear in an office, hospital, kitchen and supermarket. When people say no to Panda, Panda is not happy, despite his love of the Buddy Holly song, “True Love Ways”. The campaign has been viewed millions of times on YouTube & won a Silver Film Lion at Cannes 2010 and has now picked up a Gold for Film at the 2010 Epica Awards.

VIRGINS PROJECT MAGAZINE FOR THE IPAD

This week Virgin released their highly anticipated ‘PROJECT’ Magazine designed specifically for the iPad. The content pillars are technology, entertainment, entrepreneurs & design. Check out the video walk through here…(start from 1 minute in)

WEEKLY DIGITAL/COMMS HIGHLIGHTS

14 Social Commerce Examples from Social Media Today

Good creative stimulus for social commerce planning

I AM PLAYR 

Social gaming becomes high entertainment.  I Am Plyr is a football based game from We R Interactive, it’s a mix of online gaming, social integration, interactive videos and story telling through a pretty cool looking first person perspective. Check out the trailer...

THIS IS NOT REAL

Although it’s quite hard to believe, Alex Roman’s commercial for Grupo Cosentino’s Silestone brand countertops is all CGI, none of it is real….amazing

20 THINGS I LEARNED ABOUT BROWSERS & THE WEB

In an attempt to teach the average person about the fundamentals of browsers and the web, Google has released an interactive online book entitled 20 Things I Learned About Browsers and the Web. It’s a step-by-step explanation of the web and how it works. Created by the Google Chrome team using HTML5, but it also features a lot of clever illustrations by award-winning German illustrator and children’s author Christoph Niemann.

FACEBOOK & MYSPACE ANNOUNCE ‘MASH UP’ PARTNERSHIP

Facebook and MySpace finally announced a partnership (or “mashup” in their words), that’s been rumored for over a year. The collaboration will include a connect with Facebook button on the MySpace homepage that will allow for a variety of customization options, and opportunities to share content with your Facebook friends, as well as the placement of “Like” buttons on MySpace pages so that music and entertainment preferences declared on one network will be shared back with the other.

GAP & COOLHUNTING OPEN POP UP STORES IN NEW YORK

New popup stores are launching all over New York City in advance of this year’s holiday shopping season. Gap and Cool Hunting have partnered on a unique gift shop which officially opens Friday, November 19th on 5th Ave. Curated by the staff of Cool Hunting, the store stocks the work of New York based companies known for offering innovative products or goods with a high level of craftsmanship. Within the space you’ll find everything from bicycles to pickles.

TIM BURTON’S CROWDSOURCED TWITTER TALE

Tim Burton has taken to Twitter to create a crowd-sourced tale to promote an upcoming museum showing of his work.

The Twitter project is titled “Tim Burton’s Cadavre Exquis,” which translates to “exquisite corpse.” An exquisite corpse is a game adored by the Surrealists in which a group of people add phrases to a slip of paper in turn to create a story. Images can also be used to create eclectic beasts.

WE ALL WANT TO BE YOUNG

Compiled by Brazilian research company BOX1824, ‘We all want to be young’ is a video overview of their recent research into GenY/Millenials. It’s not new news & contains a lot of the information we already knew but it’s done in such an engaging way using old film footage, iconic events & music, it’s perfect for introducing clients to this demographic & their behaviours

SOCIAL SCORING WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE

This week, Klout began pulling in Facebook data to get a fuller picture of an individual’s social media footprint and they also have their sights set on LinkedIn, MySpace, Digg, and even Youtube, for future integration. It’s both interesting & scary at the same time, check it out.

WEEKLY DIGITAL/COMMS HIGHLIGHTS

FACEBOOK LAUNCHES ‘FACEBOOK DEALS’ VIA PLACES 
Facebook last week launched Facebook Deals, the much-anticipated new service which allows “stores, restaurants and businesses to offer promotions and discounts to users of Facebook’s location tool, Places.” Using Places, users can see what offers are nearby and share them with their friends, and can claim deals by simply checking-in to a business on Places and showing the business a voucher. (US ONLY UNTIL 2011)

GAP GIVES AWAY 10,000 PAIRS OF JEANS ON FACEBOOK PLACES 
Facebook Places launched ‘deals’ last week, which allow brands/businesses to reward people for checking in. First on board were GAP, all you had to do was check in to a GAP store in the US for your chance to win a free pair of jeans and, even if you didn’t manage to be one of the first 10,000, you still got 40% off!

FACEBOOK MESSAGES LAUNCHES (IT’S NOT EMAIL) 
Facebook has launched what it calls the “Modern Messaging System,” a product that integrates e-mail, IM and texting in a unified inbox.

CHECK-IN APPS NEXT STOP: THE SUPERMARKET AISLE 
Consumer foods players are following in the footsteps of retailers like Gap and starting to acknowledge the potential location-based apps have for them. PepsiCo, Tyson and Seventh Generation are among the major companies teaming up with the likes of Foursquare, Gowalla and CheckPoints, promoting programs that reward consumers for picking up products and giving them added incentives to put that product in their cart.

WHY LOCATIONS APPS OF THE FUTURE WILL DO SO MUCH MORE THAN CHECK-INS 
Sparkle is new location platform launching today from Location Labs that enables developers to more easily build sophisticated location-based iPhone and Android applications by tapping into Sparkle’s geolocation technology. It provides geofencing and messaging technology, offers support to control voice, data and SMS services for handsets, and can even detect mobile phone motion and velocity
So try thinking outside of check-ins when planning for geo/location…

BURGER KING: KING OF THE ROAD 
CP+B have teamed up two of their clients, Burger King & Microsoft, for a month of giveaways, content creation & experiential activations. Burger King is giving away an Xbox Kinect every 15 minutes for the whole month of November through in-store activation & purchase. In addition, CP+B have come up with the idea to send ‘The King’ on a road trip across the US to give away even more Xbox’s & to help them create social content which they’ll seed via Foursquare, Tumblr, Facebook, Youtube, Stickybits etc

5 BIG BRANDS THAT ARE ROCKING THE SOCIAL MEDIA SPACE 
Mashable rounds up their top 5 social media savvy brands of 2010 as part of their annual awards

HOW MUCH INFORMATION CAN YOU FIT IN YOUR BRAIN? 
A neat little infographic which shows the average amount of information we can fit in our brains in the course of 1 day (3.6 zettabytes!)

CAN MEDIA BE MORE UBIQUITOUS BUT YET LESS INVASIVE? 
The creative brains at Dentsu London and Berg London have teamed up to produce a pair of short films on a decisively lofty topic: the future of media surfaces.
They visualize a world in which information is somehow both more ubiquitous and less intrusive. TV screens will double as Twitter feeds and Foursquare check-in logs. Shop windows will be quietly animated. And train-ticket machines will do the unthinkable: They'll tell you where to find your train and when…

HOVIS’S 122 SECOND TV SPOT WINS UK’S TOP EFFECTIVENESS AWARDS 
Despite the decline of traditional media and the scaling down of budgets, an epic two-minute TV commercial by Hovis was the big winner at last weeks Institute of Practitioners in Advertising awards, the U.K. ad industry's prestigious effectiveness prizes. The spot is 122 seconds long, because it encapsulates the last 122 years of British history, in the form of a small boy running home from the bakery with a loaf of Hovis bread under his arm. In the street he passes by suffragette rallies, the troops marching off for World War I, the blitz, the swinging 60s, and the strikes of the 1970s. The tagline is "As good today as it's always been." It shows that if you can create a great piece of content then people will always watch it, advertisement or not…

5 MUSTS FOR MOBILE APP MARKETING 
Some great tips to keep in mind when promoting an app in a very cluttered space. Start before the app has even been released, don’t wait until after it’s hit the marketplace.

WEEKLY DIGITAL/COMMS HIGHLIGHTS

34 CASE STUDIES THAT PROVE SOCIAL MEDIA ROI
A great post which gives a brief overview of 34 different social media case studies (with links) which proved successful based on sales uplift (with exact numbers)!
E.G. DOMINO’S: Credited Foursquare with a 29% pre-tax profit through promotions that encourage people to check in to their stores

CADBURYS COCOA HOUSES 
Similar to the ‘new look’ Starbucks I sent around last week, this week we’re seeing another brand extension in the form of Cadbury’s Cocoa Houses which are due to open across the UK this month. Each venue will feature hot and chilled chocolate drinks and a rotating menu created with the help of Welsh restaurateur and food critic Simon Wright; featured items include traditional afternoon tea, bacon butties and knickerbocker glories…time will tell if it will be successful.

NOKIA N8 – THE COMMUTER 
The Commuter is a 7 minute action-packed film starring Dev Patel, Pamela Anderson, Charles Dance and Ed Westwick. Its distinguishing feature, however, is the fact that it was shot entirely with Nokia’s new flagship smartphone, the Nokia N8. The resolution of the video is 720p; the scenes shot in daylight look fantastic, while the interior shots are a bit grainy, but Nokia has definitely proven that the N8’s 12-megapixel camera is capable of doing great things

I SPREAD YOUR IDEA BECAUSE… 
A great, punchy blog post from Seth Godin listing 20 reasons why people spread ideas, worth looking at if you’re thinking about creating digital content/apps etc, does your ‘shareable’ idea fit within one of these 20 reasons?

WHEN ARE PEOPLE MOST ACTIVE ON FACEBOOK (I.E. WHEN SHOULD YOU BE TALKING TO THEM)? Social media management company Vitrue released a study that identifies the days and hours users are most active on the Facebook channels maintained by companies and brands.
Here are some of the big takeaways:
§ The three biggest usage spikes tend to occur on weekdays at 11:00 a.m., 3:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. ET.
§ The biggest spike occurs at 3:00 p.m. ET on weekdays.
§ Weekday usage is pretty steady, however Wednesday at 3:00 pm ET is consistently the busiest period.
§ Fans are less active on Sunday compared to all other days of the week.

Read the article for more stats...




Normally I'd have more to share but with this week being Melbourne Cup & also super-busy, my brain has been stretched!

WEEKLY DIGITAL/COMMS HIGHLIGHTS

STARBUCKS OF THE FUTURE 
Starbucks recently turned 40 & in line with a mid-life crisis have recently unveiled their new look ‘Starbucks of the future’ in Seattle. The new iteration is no longer a layout/design clone, which is instantly recognisable wherever you go instead it looks nothing like a Starbucks & more like an independent café/bar. They will be serving regional wine & beer as well as coffee and the interior will be location dependent with furnishings & fittings sourced from the local area. It’s an interesting direction & a big gamble but clearly in line with cultural trends & desires, only time will tell if it’s a success…

MALARITY 
Faris has this week called attention once again to the under-use of humour in communications when difficult or culturally sensitive subjects need to be talked about. He says “The aforementioned effects of expectancy violation are even more potent when applied to a category that tends to avoid humor, and sometimes it's important to use entertainment value to enter a topic into the cultural conversation.”
The example shown is for ‘Malarity’, a new campaign tying together humour, celebrities & fighting Malaria in Africa. Check it out.

JAY-Z DECODED 
The launch of ‘Decoded‘, a memoir by Jay-Z, will be preceded by a campaign created by Droga NYC, it speaks to some of the key trends of the moment such as – game mechanics, transmedia storytelling & utilizing search/location to tell a story. Well worth a look.

STARBUCKS DIGITAL NETWORK 
This week Starbucks launched their Digital Network. Previously you’ve able to check out & buy CD’s & books in store while you wait for your coffee & now you can also check out specifically curated content available via free Starbucks Wifi on your mobile device, laptop or iPad. Starbucks figures the network will give you one more reason to choose them over a competing coffee shop. After all, why would you go to the guy next door when you can come to Starbucks and get a free download from iTunes? As for the content providers—who are dishing up their wares for free to Starbucks—it’s a great way to get in front of an audience who, if you can judge from sales of Starbucks-selected CDs, books, and DVDs, are eager to discover the next great thing on the culture front.
                
THE VALUE OF EXISTING CUSTOMERS VERSUS NEW ACQUISITION (INFOGRAPHIC) 
We’re all aware of CRM & cultivating advocates but many times, new customer acquisition creeps up the list of priorities & our existing purchasers are all but forgotten. Flowtown has put together a great infographic which should serve to remind us that we can’t forget our current customers because they remain our chief asset, it’s 6-7 times more expensive to acquire new customers versus increasing the purchase rate of existing etc etc…

CRACKING THE FACEBOOK NEWSFEED CODE….& HOW TO MANIPULATE IT 
How does the social media giant decide who and what to put in your feed? Tom Weber conducts a one-month experiment to break the algorithm, discovering 10 of Facebook's biggest secrets & how to cheat the system to ensure your updates appear in other peoples newsfeeds more often…For marketers it is of critical importance to understand how content propagates through the platform
 
10 TOP TIPS FOR LEVERAGING YOUTUBE AS AN ADVERTISING MEDIUM 
While so many individuals have found their 15 minutes of fame thanks to YouTube, fewer are the brands that have garnered acclaim with savvy use of the channel. If you haven’t already utilised this fantastic opportunity, check out AdAge’s top 10 tips on how to get started, optimise & get the best out of it.

MINI GETAWAY STOCKHOLM 
MINI Getaway Stockholm is a new iPhone app that enables you to play a reality game in the Swedish capital and gives you a chance to one a new MINI Countryman. It’s engaging due to its simplicity & the massive prize opportunity. I’ve a feeling this one will be quite successful…

WEEKLY DIGITAL/COMMS HIGHLIGHTS

I am a voracious reader. I learned to skim-read a long time ago so I can get through a lot of information in a short amount of time which is good for me but can be tiresome for others because, being Gen Y, I also like to share a lot with the assumption that everyone wants to hear what I have to say!

So rather than consistently spamming everyones inbox every time I come across something of interest, I set up a little initiative in the form of a weekly 'highlights package' containing all the cool, new, exciting digital/communications stuff I come across.

It's something I send out internally at Naked to keep everyone up to date & also something I've decided to put on my blog from now on.

Enjoy...

BECKS – SHAPE YOUR MUSIC EXPERIENCE

The latest iteration of the ongoing Beck's Music Inspired Art initiative launched this week with the Beck's Shape Your Music Experience. Throughout the duration of the project, Beck's will give away up to 25 million song downloads through Play.com. Limited edition bottles and cans will carry unique codes redeemable for downloads on the site.

To celebrate the initiative, Beck's commissioned artist Jamie Brown and Inventory Studio to create enormous live art installations in Birmingham and London.

MEDIALETS VAMPIRE WEEKEND INTERACTIVE MUSIC VIDEO (MOBILE)

A really simple, rich and interactive experience that launches straight from a banner and allows the viewer to listen to, watch and manipulate the band's latest video in full screen as well as get information on the album & links to download/buy.

SOCIAL NETWORK VS INFORMATION NETWORK

It’s easy to see why most people think Facebook and Twitter are essentially the same. The core of their experiences focuses around profiles, relationships and a newsfeed, but if you dig a bit deeper, you realize that people use each platform for different purposes. Mashable’s Ben Parr has written a great article about the differences between a social network and an information network.

ATOMIC TOM – IPHONE PERFORMANCE ON THE NYC SUBWAY

Even though the members of New York City rock band Atomic Tom supposedly had their instruments stolen, they loved the music so much they couldn’t stop rocking out. They took four iPhones onto the subway and delivered a rousing performance of their song “Take Me Out”….talk about improvisation!

THE ADOBE MUSEUM OF DIGITAL MEDIA

The world’s first virtual art museum dedicated to digital art & innovation. The brain-child of Goodby, Silverstein & Partners. The vision is to fill the museum with custom pieces of interactive art from around the world, it went live last week with it’s first piece called “Valley” by American artist Tom Oursler.

GIRLSCOUTS – WORLDS STRONGEST GIRL

A beautiful mini-animation about ‘The Worlds Strongest Girl’, which then leads into an interactive experience, created by Leo Burnett. The site enables girls to write and share stories that bring this idea to life, as girls are able to design custom badges with their thoughts about what makes the “World’s Strongest Girl.”  Badges also “speak” the ideas aloud and can be shared with friends. The idea is to help web-savvy girls foster stronger relationships with the Girl Scouts and further engage and inform the Girl Scout community.

THE ANDROIDS ARE COMING…

A just released infographic shows that Android handsets are tearing up the market outpacing the overhyped and all over the media Apple by a ratio of 4:1.

GOOGLE ROBOT CAR HITS THE ROAD

Google has secretly developed a robot car that can drive itself without any human intervention. And to prove that this is no fantasy, the company even sent out a few of its cars on roads across California, which were able to safely negotiate the traffic and turns, without any accidents.

BANNER ADS CAN NOW INCLUDE FACEBOOK ‘LIKE’

Advertisers such as Mountain Dew & JC Penny in the US have rolled out the new ‘like’ plug in within their banner ads. Viewers of the ads can ‘like’ it with one click & their action is recorded within Facebook on their newsfeeds/wall. Friends who have liked the ad will also be visible to you. It’s a logical step!

21st Century Enlightenment

A wonderful RSA animated talk that explores our previous endeavours as a society to create human happiness and how, in this day and age, that approach to 'happiness' is no longer valid.

Our previous priorities of driving progress through science & technology, the logic of markets and bureaucracy desperately need to be tempered with 'humanism', a deeper understanding of who we are as people and our ever increasing requirement of empathy for our fellow man in order to live in peace with each other. 

It's a bit academic but absolutely worth watching.

'Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world'

The evolution of an internet meme: Bed Intruder

Meet Antoine Dodson, the latest 'darling' of the interwebs and the originator of the current 'bed intruder' meme sweeping everyone's Facebook, Twitter and Inboxes around the world.

It all began on July 28th when he was interviewed on an NBC-affiliate news program after the attempted rape of his sister in 'the projects' in Lincoln Park.
The video was made available online and quickly caught the attention of many of the viewers due to his flamboyant attitude and generally hilarious commentary.



The video understandably went 'viral' and within a few days was remixed by Youtube mash-up artists and musical group 'The Gregory Brothers' using autotune to quickly become an over night phenomenon:


Another day, another remix. This time from Hayley Williams, lead singer of Paramore and Jordan Pundik, lead singer of New Found Glory:


After just 3 weeks, Dodson has become a superstar with more than 16 million video views on Youtube and with the autotune 'bed intruder' song at no.35 on the iTunes chart. He was recently interviewed on NBC's Today Show about his new found fame...


Now 4.5 weeks in there are thousands of copy-cat videos on Youtube, you can buy t-shirts and other merchandise and Dodson has set up a website asking for donations to help his family move out of the 'hood', plus he is receiving 50% of all profits on the song sales! A great ending to a horrific beginning...

Oh the power of the interwebs!

My personal favourite:

Gaming mechanics for behaviour change

I've been reading alot lately about gaming mechanics and their effect on influencing and changing our behaviour both consciously and subconsciously.

Gaming is a part of all of our lives whether we realise it or not but many people's classification of of it is very narrow. They assume that video game players such as those who play 'World Of Warcraft' are 'gamers' but if you've ever used a rewards card (e.g. buy 5 coffees get the 6th free) then that makes you a gamer too, you've participated in an activity that works based on game mechanics.

Below is a great talk by Seth Priebatsch who runs SCVNGR, a mobile start-up who's aim is to build a 'game layer' on top of the world.
He argues that for the last decade we've all been focused on Social Networking and making connections but that the framework for doing this has now come to fruition and needs little to no tweaking, therefore our Social Networking phase is done and dusted.
The next phase which will develop over the next decade is 'Game Mechanics' which is all about influencing and changing our behaviour by placing a gaming layer over our everyday realities. It may seem far fetched to think that we'll all become 'gamers' but if we widen our definition of 'gaming' to encompass more than just traditional video games then it doesn't seem quite as implausible, it starts to seem entirely possible.

Seth discussed 4 key game mechanics that influence our behaviours and how we've already been exposed to most of these mechanics already:

1. The 'Appointment' Dynamic: A dynamic in which to succeed, one must return at a predefined time to take a predetermined action
2. The 'Influence & Status' Dynamic: The ability of one player to modify the behaviour and actions of another player via social pressure
3. The 'Progression' Dynamic: A dynamic in which success is granularly displayed and measured through the process of completing itemised tasks
4. The 'Communal Discovery' Dynamic: wherein an entire community is rallied to work together to solve a challenge

Applications such as Foursquare, social games such as Farmville and feedback loops such as Nike+ are just the beginning...
Check out his talk below, well worth watching:

It's about the product, not the marketing...

Quote of the day: Jeff Bezos (Amazon) to Charlie Rose (US interviewer) :

"Before if you were making a product, the right business strategy was to put 70% of your attention, energy, and dollars into shouting about a product, and 30% into making a great product. So you could win with a mediocre product, if you were a good enough marketer. That is getting harder to do. The balance of power is shifting toward consumers and away from companies...the individual is empowered... The right way to respond to this if you are a company is to put the vast majority of your energy, attention and dollars into building a great product or service and put a smaller amount into shouting about it, marketing it. If I build a great product or service, my customers will tell each other."